The subject invention relates to an apparatus and method for determining postage and more particularly to postage meter systems incorporating such apparatus and method.
Sophisticated system for determining applicable postage for items to be mailed exist. Typically such systems comprise a scale for determining the weight of an item to be mailed, a keyboard for entering data necessary to determine the applicable postage in accordance with the weight and entered data for each item to be mailed. One such apparatus is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,286,325, to Dlugos, et al., for SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COMPUTING DOMESTIC AND INFORMATIONAL POSTAGE, filed Aug. 27, 1979, which is hereby incorporated by reference.
Though such apparatus have proven to be highly adaptable, having the capability to handle numerous classes of service and being readily modified to deal with changing postal rates such systems have heretofore lacked the capability to deal with postage values expressed in fractions of the smallest unit of currency. (It should be noted that prior art apparatus could deal with fractional rate increments. Thus a postage rate of 191/2 cents per ounce would have been within the capability of the prior art systems but the final postage value would have had to have been expressed in terms of whole cents.) However, it has now become apparent that a need exists for postage meter systems capable of handling fractional cents postage values. For example it is anticipated that the U.S. Postal Serivce may allow bulk mailers a 1/2 cent discount on bulk mail pre-sorted by zip code. In the prior art such a need could be handled to a limited extent by storing fractional cent postage values increased by a factor of 10 in the processor. A postage meter with fractional cents capability could then be connected to the system with the 0.1 cents meter input connected to the 1 cent processor output and the other meter inputs connected accordingly.
While useful to some extent the approach taken in the prior art to handle fractional cent postage values suffered from certain disadvantages. Thus the postage value displayed to the system operator of such a prior art system might be ten times too large. Similarly such systems could not include postage accounting subsystems since such subsystems would receive erroneous data whenever a postage value expressed in fractions of a cent was determined. And of course postage values expressed in whole units could no longer be determined with the same number of significant digits. However, the systems of the prior art did have one major advantage. Since a postage meter is in effect a machine for spending money, reliability of operation, and confidence in that reliability, are of the utmost importance. Thus it was an important feature of the prior art that postage values expressed in fractions of a cent could be handled in the manner described above with minimal changes in what was a well tested, highly reliable, well excepted system.
Thus it is an object of the subject invention to provide an apparatus for determining postage values expressed in fractions of the smallest unit of currency and outputting and displaying such values in a consistant manner.
It is another object of the subject invention to this while retaining the highest possible degree of confidence in the reliability of the apparatus.
It is another object of the subject invention to provide an apparatus which is capable of determining postage values expressed in fractions of the smallest unit of currency for some classes of postal service while, for other classes of postal service, determining postage values expressed in whole units with the same precision.